We can’t know how you happened upon our little tirade, but we’re guessing you didn’t find our book next to the magazines in your physician’s waiting room. Pity, because we fail to see a better place for it. Still, your personal bookshelf will do nicely, in which case you may file this one under Reality Check, if you like, because that’s precisely what you hold in your hands.

Most MDs in the U.S. have a book nearby called the PDR – Physicians Desk Reference. Well, here’s a PDR of a different sort. Rest assured, in the realm of clinical diagnoses, A.D.D. no longer merely stands for Attention Deficit Disorder.

Some of you may wonder howAmerica’s Dumbest Doctorscame to be. It isn’t really that long a tale. For years we waited patiently (pun inescapable) for somebody of appropriate angst to come along, sort through the pyramid-of-Giza-sized accumulation of goof-ups, and assemble them into an enlightening work. It would have been particularly cool, we thought, had a doctor chosen to shine a penlight into the recesses of his or her own profession. After all, they do take such pride in policing themselves. An elucidation of physician faux pas was decades overdue. So we tended to our own daily chores in disease care and we waited. We responded to 20,106 emergency calls, and we waited some more. And you know what? It just didn’t happen.

They just wouldn’t . . . you know . . . fess up.

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“I was always under the impression that putting a doctor in jail was a rare event. My opinion changed recently when I discovered this book. The encyclopedia of doctor’s misbehavior.For me, it was a very interesting and a very painful read. BUT…. THANK GOD, I AM NOT LISTED INSIDE!”

And so we began to wonder, who else might do such a project justice, if not doctors themselves? Well, nurses certainly could. Nobody on the planet, Lord knows, holds a more accurate view of inner sanctum lunacy than do these talented professionals. It is nurses, after all, who are insulted and assaulted, spat upon, pushed aside, denigrated, groped and more, all on a daily basis. So much so that within the sequestered halls of medicine (and not a few court rooms) a shameful phrase now echoes off the walls. It’s called “disruptive physician” – demeanor which encompasses a wide-range of child-like deportment, sort of like the sixth-grader who tends to get mean, throw things around the classroom and generally fails to play well with others. By the year 2000, academia was replete with studies detailing the undeniable connection between nurses walking away from the profession, and physician foibles. The resulting impact on patient outcomes is ugly and obvious.

We suggest you keep right on trusting America’s medical commercials.

Yet even nurses, opting to protect their livelihoods, have always elected to remain relatively silent on the absurdities they endure so often. To be sure, a number of terrific exceptions have been penned over the years. Still, the ongoing circus of physician screw-ups, poop and boo-boos rolls merrily along everyday, does it not, preposterously under-published.

For there exist, we now know, entire armies of health care experts with spooky tales to hoist your hackles, but you would scarcely guess it by visiting the library. Or by watching network news.

So after 25 years, with our personal pile of funny little notes bulging from a dust-covered briefcase, it finally dawned. Okay, so maybe we’re slow. But the torch was ours to carry. A paramedic would just have to do it. We, the ruffians in blue, those rogues of rescue, the only characters in the entire scheme of advanced medicine who run around outside, faces awash in the fresh air of clarity. It does, in the end, make perfect sense. Who else orchestrates advanced emergency treatment with not a singular hospital staff, but many dozens? Who else arrives on accident scenes time after time, to find bewildered physician-bystanders with literally no clue what to do, absent x-rays, labs and nurses to orchestrate the treatment plan? Who else, by virtue of our nifty 24-hour shifts, is likely to be around at all, to witness bonehead moves by doctors, at any hour of any day?

And so it comes to pass, from our unparalleled perspective, that three unequivocal points ought now be carved into the stone of medicine’s Rushmore:

Many of the finest primates in our country can be found wearing lab coats, and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude

Many of their wackiest peers graduated from the very same medical schools

Some of the most confounding characters in society scribe MD after their names

The Texas State Medical Board has decided to “restrict” the medical license of one Doctor Robert Wayne Van Boven. He was a staff member at Lakeway Regional Medical Center until he was fired last year, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Van Boven is also a neurologist at the Brain & Body Health Institute in the city of Lakeway. The board learned that horn-dog Van Boven was routinely engaging in highly inappropriate sexual behavior and making nasty comments to female patients. They say this particular misbehavior happened in April and May, 2015, and they believe both patients’ statements are credible. They found considerable similarity in what the women say happened to them.

“The final review will demonstrate that this was based on egregious false facts, financial and other improper motives,” he said. “I pray that truth will prevail.” (Van Boven in a statement)

(Note to doc: When one attempts to persuade others, a brighter effort is to anchor your statements in a foundation of logic. Here’s a hint: there exists no such thing in the universe as “false facts.” Wise up)

This isn’t the first time the stethoscope snollygoster has stepped into deep doctor doo-doo. According to Lakeway Police Department, their officers were sent out to his house in 2008 and again in 2013 for domestic disputes. And he was involved in 2 separate cases of Criminal Trespassing in 2015.

Oh. Almost forgot. This med school graduate can’t seem to master how to drive a car on public streets. He’s accumulated 8 traffic citations and has been stopped 16 other times while behind the wheel, when he should have been handcuffed – but wasn’t.

According to the Texas Medical Board, the restriction they placed on Van Boven “prohibits him from seeing, examining, treating, prescribing or otherwise practicing medicine on female patients.”

Our question is this: Why is this character allowed the privilege of touchinganybody?

Of the 77,000 licensed physicians in Texas, the Texas Medical Board reports they bring an average of 300 disciplinary actions against doctors annually. They say 40-50 lose their licenses.

The good doctor gets 25 years in prison; office manager/wife gets 4 years.

In the beach city of Tampa Florida we now know that month after month, year after year, an elderly physician would routinely scribble out narcotic prescriptions to drug addicts. Quite a number of them overdosed and at least 16 of them died. And so finally, when Doctor Edward Neil Feldman, age 76, was handcuffed and taken away, he tried to defend his behavior in court last February, by arguing that a whole lot of people had “fooled” him to get the drugs.

Because after being a physician for half a century and physically assessing a hundred thousand patients – well, he’d never quite figured out how to tell which ones were faking their pain, and which ones were actually hurting.

The jury said ‘fraid not to his innocent grandpa act: they convicted him of Illegal Narcotic Trafficking – the result of which was directly tied to 3 dead people: Joey Mayes, age 24, Ricky Gonzalez, 42, and Shannon Wren, 42. The 13 other overdose deaths could not be firmly blamed on Feldman the Fooled. For one thing, many addicts have learned to get drugs from more than one doctor.

“The government had 16 dead people to choose from in this case. You don’t get to say you’re blind when you’ve got your head in the sand. You don’t get to say that you’ve been fooled when you refuse to take the blinders off.” (Federal Prosecutor Shauna Hale in her closing argument)

The doctor’s wife, Kim Xuan Feldman, age 66, was found guilty too, along with her husband, on 5 counts in a $5,000,000 drug and cash conspiracy. But only the MD was charged and convicted for the deaths. In each case, the prosecution was able to prove that he prescribed heavy pain medication for no true medical reason, and beyond the scope of accepted treatment. And not documenting treatments and prescriptions in patient charts for decades? Well that was just stupid arrogance.

Like nearly all other of the quarter-million criminal physicians since 1950, freaky Feldman most likely figured he would never get caught.

After all, this was the government’s second effort at trying this case. The first time last November ended in a mistrial.

The Tampa Bay Times reported last year that pill bottles bearing Feldman’s name were found at many scenes where people had popped the doc’s pills – then rolled over and died.

The Florida Department of Health, which oversees the Board of Medicine, reports they have multiple cases pending against his license – cases put on hold until the felony charges were resolved. The doctor was already under order to not treat patients.

During the trial, the prosecution argued that Feldman’s prescriptions had far more to do with his greed than patients faking pain. The prosecutor said the MD handed out addictive drugs for years like they were candy, and ignored signs that clearly showed drug abuse.

Feldman’s defense lawyer told jurors that the doctor had been unfairly targeted by the Drug Enforcement Administration and was guilty of nothing more than incomplete recordkeeping.

Our Observations:

Note to doc: remember your 10 years of medical training? Remember that part about all those patient chart notes you took?

As so often happens with these lab coat loons, this wasn’t Edward Feldman’s first Felony conviction. In 2004 he was found guilty of taking illegal cash payments from an MRI clinic. Yes, he was paid by the MRI people to send patients for testing – all paid for by insurance companies, of course – most of whom were in no need of an MRI exam at all. This resulted in a brief suspension of his medical license and probation in lieu of jail time. He was stealing insurance money but, hey! He’s a doctor. It wasn’t like he was – you know – a common criminal.

Slaps on the degreed wrists for felony-level garbage behavior. As a society, how would you say that’s working out for us so far?